


A Taste for Tragedy

by rhodrymavelyne



Category: Forever Knight
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-18 15:44:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18252893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhodrymavelyne/pseuds/rhodrymavelyne
Summary: After the events of Fever, Dr. Natalie Lambert goes to the Raven to have a little talk with LaCroix about Nick, only to have the elder vampire reveal the true reason he kills every mortal who crosses his Nicholas's path.





	A Taste for Tragedy

**Author's Note:**

> This happens not long after the events of Fever, during the third season. 
> 
> I don't own Forever Knight, but it continues to haunt me years after it's been cancelled...

There he sat at the bar, the Roman patrician with his glass of blood. Aloof from the crowds around him, just as Janette had been when she ruled over this club. 

This was the man who’d killed just about anyone who’d ever gotten close to Nick. This was the man who could drain her dry in moments if he chose, just as he had Dr. Alyce Hunter. 

In spite of this, Dr. Natalie Lambert walked across the bar, paying no attention to the incredulous looks both Vachon and Urs were giving her, trying to force her knees not to knock together. 

No, this was not her element. Natalie felt as out of place now as she had years ago, confronting Janette in the backroom about Nick. 

Now she was about to do the same thing with a vampire who was older, more powerful, and for all intents, impossible to kill. 

Tough. Natalie had something to say to this old, powerful, and unkillable vampire who’d drained one of her oldest friends…who was closer to Nick than anyone except maybe her. 

“LaCroix.” She didn’t raise her voice as she approached the bar. She didn’t need to. 

“Dr. Lambert.” LaCroix didn’t look up, didn’t acknowledge her. He simply gazed into the depths of his ruby glass as if it was much more interesting than her. 

Perhaps whoever he was drinking had been. Again, tough. Unlike LaCroix, Nat’s time was finite and precious. She wasn’t about to waste it. 

“I know you hate me.” She laid a hand on the bar, gripped the edge. “Maybe it’s for the same reason you’ve hated every mortal who crossed Nick’s path over the centuries.”

LaCroix lifted his head at this, fixing a pale, blue eye upon her. His eyebrow shot straight up. 

“Almost everyone,” Natalie corrected herself, thinking of Janette, the only woman LaCroix had offered to his precious son who hadn’t been food. “That’s not the point I’m here, trying to make.”

“What exactly is this point, Dr. Lambert?” LaCroix turned his head in Natalie’s direction. 

“I had a taste recently of what you’ve put Nick through over the centuries.” Anger bled into her words, mingled with pain over Cal, the friend she hadn’t been able to save. 

Perhaps LaCroix could have save him, only he’d dispatched Cal like he had so many mortals in the past. Like he’d killed almost every human who’d ever been precious to Nick. 

“Slaughering everyone who gets close to Nick isn’t going to make Nick yours.” Natalie met the ancient vampire’s stare. “It’ll only drive him away.”

“Is that what you think? Let me tell you something, Doctor.” LaCroix leaned a little closer. “That’s not why I’ve eliminated so many mortals who’ve crossed Nicholas’s path.”

This time it was Nat’s turn to raise her eyebrow, even as she struggled not to flinch. 

“All right, it’s not the only reason why,” LaCroix conceded, lips quirking in a smile. “It’s certainly not the main reason.” He moved his pale eyes over Natalie’s face, lips, neck, and bosom, sizing her up in a leisurely manner that paid no tribute to chivalry. Lucien LaCroix had been old long before such a notion existed. “Surely you’ve guessed, Doctor? You, whom he’s made his confidant and confessor?”

“Enlighten me with your superior wisdom.” Sarcasm was the only defense Natalie Lambert had ever had against fear, even if it tended to ditch her when she needed it most. “What am I missing?”

“Nicholas’s appallingly bad taste in companions. No. Bad taste is putting it mildly.” LaCroix smiled a bitter smile of irony, finding humour in his own pain. “Tragic to the point of self-destructive would be more accurate.”

Natalie opened her mouth and closed it. She thought of Erica, Ann Foley, Monica Howard, and Emily Weiss. She recalled the priest he’d brought across and even Richard, her own brother. 

Not that all those had been Nick’s fault. Natalie had had a hand in Richard’s fate, something which made her chest ache even now. 

LaCroix smiled again. Perhaps he was mocking Nick, her, and even himself. Perhaps he was attempting to find the humour in something he himself agonized over. “That is why I kill my Nicholas’s companions.” Once more, he fixed his eyes upon Natalie with a deadly intensity. “I destroy them before they have a chance to destroy him.”

“Is that what you think I’m going to do?” Natalie swallowed. “I want to help Nick, not hurt him. Haven’t I proved that by now?”

“You may think you do, but you misunderstand your own motivations for helping him.” LaCroix twisted his mouth into an even more bitter smile. “I did warn you. Once Nicholas became human, you’d lose the very thing you desire.” 

“I don’t desire it,” Natalie protested. Only how many times had she asked for it? For herself or for someone else? How often had she turned to vampiric blood, vampiric strength to solve her problems?

Would either she or Nick still be here without his vampire?

“You’re drawn to what Nicholas is, just as he’s drawn to your humanity. You lack the strength to admit what you truly want, while he stumbles in the dark, thinking mortality will solve all his problems.” LaCroix stopped smiling. “Your relationship with Nicholas is as finite as you are. Finite and doomed.”

“We’ll see about that.” The cool resolve in her own voice surprised Natalie. “We may be stronger than you think. Even if we’re not, we may be able to pick up the pieces of what’s broken.” 

“Perhaps. I am certain Nicholas will give you every chance to destroy him just as he’s given it to his other friends.” LaCroix leaned closer, so his lips were inches from hers. “Understand this, Dr. Nathalie Lambert. If you do, I will do the same to you.”

This time, Natalie couldn’t stop herself from flinching and recoiling. “It’s a good thing I don’t intend to destroy him then.”

“Good intentions are meaningless. Believe me, I know.” Abruptly, LaCroix pulled back himself and smiled. The tension between them evaporated. “In the end, I think Janette and Schanke may have been the closest thing Nicholas has had to healthy relationships, as your modern psychologists would say.” He looked up and down. “They were certainly healthier than the one he has with you or with me.”

Natalie blinked at this, only to recall how Nick had come to smile more and more in Schanke’s company. To laugh more openly and naturally. To act more like he was a real cop, part of the force, rather than a mysterious undead prince pretending to be a cop. 

Donald Schanke had come closer than anyone to making Nick Knight human while all it took was a kiss for Nat to bring the beast out of him. Which relationship was healthier?

Maybe LaCroix had a point. 

Damn him, even if it was redundant. 

LaCroix chuckled as if he’d heard her thoughts. “Here’s to your unhealth.”

Nat’s lips twitched in spite of herself. It wasn’t funny. It so wasn’t funny. 

Well, maybe it was just a little.


End file.
